Robbery by far the most common motive for work-related homicides

While many may assume that most work-related homicides are crimes of passion or anger, committed by disgruntled coworkers, spouses, or acquaintances, this is not the case. Of the 428 homicide cases in 1998 where the victim-perpetrator association could be identified, fully two-thirds involved robbery.

Coworkers and former coworkers accounted for 15 percent of identifiable cases of workplace homicide, acquaintances for 7 percent, and relatives for 4 percent. Together, these three categories accounted for barely a quarter of the total.

Data on workplace fatalities are from the BLS Safety and Health Statistics program. To learn more about work-related fatalities, see "Work-related Homicides: The Facts" (PDF 76K), by Eric Sygnatur and Guy A. Toscano, Compensation and Working Conditions, Spring 2000. Numbers in chart do not add to 100 percent due to rounding.